In Other Words... aims to synthesize existing research on a range of topics and to present factual information in a narrative both accessible and entertaining. Topics addressed will likely focus broadly on evolution, featuring posts on behavior, cognition, language, and humor.

Monday, September 9, 2013

Animal Cognition Science Ruffling More Than Feathers

What do science writer Virginia Morell and animal scientists
Frans de Waal and Brian Hare all have in common?

They each took time out of their busy schedules to speak in
my home town at the Decatur Book Festival.

Each of them also had a bit to say about changing
perspectives in the field of animal cognition. These changes involve more than
just which species are of particular interest and what specific questions scientists
wish to investigate. The very language
we use to describe scientific discovery is undergoing transformation.

Anthropomorphism — attributing human characteristics to
non-humans — has typically met great resistance. Some philosophers and older
scientists may still balk at a scientist using the words teach and learn to describe
specific interactions between — for example — ants.

Instead, they might favor a vaguer description of the
action, semantically separating the human act of teaching from the ant’s transference
of information — whether intentional or not — through exhibition in the
coincidental proximity of at least one individual who previously had yet to demonstrate
possession of (but may very well have already possessed) said information.

Studying the capacities of animals seems to have been a
means of reinforcing the misconception that we humans are evolution’s
masterpiece. It was the science of isolating exactly which features of humanity
make us so special. It was the data we needed to justify a generous pat on the
back.

But the pinnacle of progress we are not.

Ms. Morell’s book Animal Wise attempts to summarize the great wealth of cognition research that
covers a huge variety of species across the animal kingdom. In her talk, she
touched upon laughing rats, border collies with expansive vocabularies, and the
aforementioned ant pedagogy.

Our “uniquely human” capabilities (if I may use quotation
marks ironically) surface again and again — in related species and in species so
distant our common ancestors would’ve likely resembled some sort of worm.

Intelligence does not exist on a continuum, a point Dr.
Hare emphasized in his talk. We humans don’t preside at the top of the animal
kingdom because there is no “top.” How would you even quantify something as
broad as intelligence? Sure, you can devise a test of memory, or a test of
empathy, or a test of communicative ability. But how do these intelligent
traits stack up against each other?

Hare instead proposes that each species — even individuals
within a species — have their own cognitive
profile. Depending on its environment, a species may favor and rely upon
certain flavors of intelligence while others are diminished.

At the book festival promoting, The Genius of Dogs, which he co-wrote with his wife, science writer
Vanessa Woods, Hare spoke predominantly about his canine research. Historically
scientists regarded dogs as artificial, the circumstances in which they evolved
unnatural. But, again, the perspective of the field has changed. Scientists are
no longer studying animals so we can put the fragile human ego on a shelf overlooking
the kingdom, now they are studying animals so they can see how we fit in among
them.

Now, studying animals can truly help us understand the
evolutionary path of our own species. For Hare this means dogs are fair game. What
better animal to provide a window into human evolution than that which has
co-evolved with us? If we can
understand how they became like us, said
Hare, we can understand how we became
like us.

In the last decade animal cognition research has really branched
out. Our primate relatives are no longer the center of attention, with dogs, birds,
dolphins, elephants, and a host of invertebrates stealing some of the
limelight.

Still, renowned primatologist Dr. de Waal — arguably one of
the driving forces behind the changing field — has had no difficulty pushing primate
work into new territories. His more recent work has focused on emotions, empathy,
and morality.

If likening an insect to a teacher causes a stir, imagine
the kind of opposition a claim for ape morality would meet.

De Waal — whose newest book is called The Bonobo and the Atheist— drew attention to the changing opinions
on morality’s origin. Initially the belief was that God gave us morality, said
de Waal. Then it was reason, then it was science. He rejects even this third
view, claiming instead that morality isn’t given to us at all. It comes from
within.

What about religion, you ask? Well, at this point, scientists
have yet to observe its existence in any species outside of our own. Unlike those
basic moral tendencies, on the timescale of evolution, it’s a much more recent
phenomenon. For these very reasons, it’s hard to imagine that religion is the
father of morality. The more probable relationship casts religion as an engineer
and morality as the material at its disposal.

Taken together, scientists studying animal cognition are
making it harder than ever to disregard our common identity as animals. My opinion,
this is a good thing. All too often, the upper limit of human self-identification
stops short at a nationality. I’m more than an American. I’m a human. A human animal.